There aren’t too many app-based challenger banks that are as diverse as Revolut.

You’d be hard pushed to find another one that offers accounts, international money transfers that aren’t expensive and an option to both buy and sell cryptocurrencies.

Now, it is adding another tool to its arsenal; a commission-free share trading platform, which will allow customers to invest in companies without having to pay huge fees. It is also letting users buy other instruments, such as exchange traded fund (ETFs).

For those of you familiar with the US market, Revolut’s model is similar to the Robinhood app, but for the European market.

In a statement released by Nik Storonsky, who is the Founder and CEO of the company, Revolut has vowed to shake up the world of investments in a similar fashion to how they did with banking.

The statement read: “Brokers are charging people as much as £5.00 per trade and the user interfaces are typically clunky, slow and confusing for consumers. The pain points are clear for us and the room for improvement is massive.”

Smartphone investing without commission and brokerage fees is an idea which could change the entire investment landscape within Europe, so it’s hardly surprising that this development is being monitored with a watchful eye.

No official date has been set for this new option, but the organisation is thought to be in the advance stages of development.

With just over a week remaining before the end of the LocalCoinSwap ICO, Chief Operating Officer, Daniel Worsley, has confirmed that any of the ICO allocation of tokens not sold, will be destroyed.

“The ICO end date is final. Because our token-holders are our owners, we are wholly committed to burn any which go unsold, in order to protect the investment of existing LCS Cryptoshare funders” Worsley said.

“Whilst we are in negotiation with exchanges as we speak, we know that many of our investors are in this for the long haul, determined to hold on to their Cryptoshares in anticipation of the dividend payments which start early in 2019. Therefore whilst secondary market trading will open up the opportunity to buy Cryptoshares to those geographically constrained from ICO purchasing, we do anticipate a limited availability.”

With over $10m raised so far and the third stage of the token sale well underway, the team have their eyes focused on the future for the community. Complete transparency has always been the driving principle at LocalCoinSwap, and as the team count down the final days of their initial coin offering, they are totally clear about their future direction.

LocalCoinSwap will provide interlinked trading and communication tools to provide the greatest possible range of ways to buy and sell cryptocurrencies on a peer-to-peer basis.

“We want our users to have freedom to choose”, explains CTO Nathan Worsely. “They’ll be able to make deals in any currency, in any location. We’ll offer a choice of simple margin pricing, or the ability to use advanced formulae. And the social community tools are embedded in the platform by design, not bolted-on afterwards – every user will be able interact in the forum and build their own profile and reputation”.

With over 5500 unique users signed up and awaiting the platform launch in August, the community – many of whom are already actively engaged on a range of social media platforms – are eager to get trading, and see the exchange come to life. And many have a vested interest in this, because LCS Cryptoshares come with additional benefits:

“We remain the only exchange which distributes 100% of profits back to its token holders,” Worsley explains, “and this shared ownership means that we all grow and develop as the exchange itself does. For us, this underpins a fundamental value of accessibility, making the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies easy, safe and sociable – so that more and more people are encouraged to join us in this economic revolution”.

Amazon is one of those companies that seem to have a finger in every pie at the moment and their new blockchain partnership could be one of their tastiest ventures yet.

Amazon’s cloud computing arm has partnered with a start-up called Kaleido, which will now make it easier for customers to put their services on blockchain.

Amazon Web Service said that introducing Kaleido to their customers “is going to help (them) move faster and not worry about managing blockchain themselves.”

The new partnership, which was announced on Tuesday, will see Kaleido give AWS an easy route to get into the same tech area that underpins many cryptocurrencies.

Amazon Web Services offers a cloud computing platform to individuals. It is a paid subscription service and its methods thus far have been to use a partner-led strategy instead of building from the ground up.

As one of the most influential companies in the world, many onlookers have noted that this move will give a massive boost to blockchain’s public reputation.

For those of you that don’t know how it works; blockchain technology records transactions on a public ledger, which is underpinned by blocks of transactions. Fans of the technology state that this system gets rid of the need of a third party and insist that it is more secure and quicker than its competition.

Joseph Lubin, the founder of Ethereum blockchain, reckons this is a sizable move by Amazon.

The pair will be using Ethereum’s tech, so it’s interesting to read Lubin’s thoughts. He said: “This is a heavy duty, full stack way of getting the company into blockchain solutions.”

Lubin added that the recent rise in interest in blockchain has been almost comical. He stated: “Three years ago we were getting calls from companies trying to spell blockchain and trying to order one in a color because their boss told them they should get a blockchain. At this point there are tens of thousands of companies around the world that have real sophistication around this.”

Steve Cerveny, a founder of Kaleido, insisted that this move will make it much simpler for customers of AWS. He said: “They can focus on their scenario and they don’t have to become PhDs is cryptography, we give them a simple platform to build their company on blockchain.”

Cerveny told CNBC that Amazon has been looking to get into this service for a while, stating: “They’ve been looking for partners to help get blockchain into their customers’ hands. They’re putting it in the marketplace will accelerate what their customers are going to do with it.”

“Introducing Kaleido to AWS customers is going to help customers move faster and not worry about managing blockchain themselves,” Amazon Web Services insisted.

Blockchain’s incredible rise into the mainstream is hitting an all-time high, with Amazon joining the likes of Microsoft and Facebook in a bid to explore the benefits of the technology.

When people think of gold, they think of a reliable and valuable commodity. In the future, that might be the way people think about certain cryptocurrencies.

A company called OneGram are trying to combine both crypto and gold, by creating a currency which is backed by the chemical element.

There is method to their ambitious project; it is thought that by involving such a traditionally valuable commodity, that more investors from Islamic investors will be drawn to get involved.

Traditionally, this sort of investment didn’t sit well with Islam. That is in part due to Sharia principles, which don’t allow interest payments and don’t encourage monetary speculation. It is a hot debate amongst scholars, whether or not cryptocurrencies are allowed by the religion.

Hence, companies like OneGram, who are trying to launch currencies that have their base in physical assets. Each one of OneGram’s currency is backed by at least a gram of the valuable element, thus speculation decreases automatically.

Ibrahim Mohammed, the co-founder of OneGram, told Reuters: “Gold was among the first forms of money in Islamic societies so this is appropriate. We are trying to prove rules and regulations from sharia are fully compatible with digital blockchain technology.”

There have already been millions of dollars’ worth of this currency distributed and there are further plans to distributed what is the remaining 60 percent. In what was an important coup, OneGram obtained a ruling that this currency conforms with Islamic principles from a Dubai-based consulting firm OneGram isn’t the only cryptocurrency to receive this sort of approval. HelloGold, which originated in Malaysia, and is also based on Gold, received a separate approval stating their cryptocurrency is also conforming with Islamic principles.

Considering that 20 to 30 percent of banking in the Gulf and Southeast Asia follow these principles, it is important for any currency that wants to break into this market to also apply them.

National sharia authorities have warned their populations about the pitfalls of trading in cryptocurrencies, but they have not imposed outright bans.

Thus, it is down to the people themselves to use their values when deciding whether or not to invest in blockchain technology.

Crypto investment is nothing new, but CoinShares‘ recent launch of two flagship funds both designed to invest in a diverse range of cryptocurrencies, certainly is.

The two funds: ‘Active’ Fund – a multi-coin, alpha-generating, active strategy; and ‘Large Cap’ Fund – a passive basket fund; represent a natural evolution of market approaches based on the current trajectory of the crypto-asset economy.

CoinShares hopes to provide users with less volatility than other single purpose funds and also aims to provide more of a reward, without the higher risk some would assume to be in place.

Ryan Radloff, CEO of CoinShares suggested that this is the way forward for folks who are looking for a way to invest in cryptocurrencies. He said in a statement: “If you wanted to invest in the internet through a diverse mix of strategies focused on everything from servers, fiber-optics and silicon to search engines, social network start-ups and e-commerce infrastructure – this would be that fund; but for the crypto-economy.

“We are very excited about bringing this fund and Block Asset Management’s expertise to our investor base; both the strategy and team will be a great complement to CoinShares’ growing platform of strategies.”

The experience on the Block Asset team suggests this may be true, with their team holding experience from the likes of Credit Suisse, Societe General, Citibank, UBS, Barclays & Lloyds.

CoinShares are definitely hoping to take advantage of this market, as they have also announced that they would be introducing two other crypto asset funds just a month ago. Thus, it’s not surprising that they are the European leader in crypto-finance, holding over $1b in crypto-assets across their investment products.

This announcement follows the group’s October launch of the first Ether Tracking, Exchange Traded Products on Nasdaq Stockholm. These ETPs now comprise more than $350M of assets less than 4 months post launch.

Potential investors should take note however, that cryptocurrencies typically deal in a very volatile market. Thus, it is advised that investors should only invest if they can afford to do so, as their capital will be at risk and there is no guarantee of a return.

Six interesting ERC20 projects to invest in right now

In the last few months our editorial team have been flooded with pitches from a variety of token based startups. We’ve read white papers on everything from blatant scams through to fairytale ideas and everything in between.

As an investor it can be hard to cut through all this clutter and find the next big token, especially one that will make a good return on your investment. This is getting considerably harder with scammers becoming more creative when their marketing techniques and ideas.

That said every so often we do come across innovative blockchain projects that genuinely fix a problem and are set to revolutionise their respective industry.

Our team have researched six promising ERC20 tokens backed startups we think will make great investments.

HelloGold

HelloGold is not a Blockchain firm you might be familiar with, despite the company raising just over 17,000 Ether in a token sale earlier this year.

The project aims to simplify the purchase and management of Gold through a smartphone app for low to medium income customers based in poorer parts of the world.

Built on the Ethereum blockchain the project helps do what traditional gold investing cannot – it provides greater transparency and security for gold owners and verifies the amount of gold being held by each person whilst cross-checking with daily gold list custodians who physically store the gold in a fully insured vault in Singapore.

Why is this important? It means every gram of gold only has one owner and is completely traceable.

HelloGold have already delivered on many fronts. Their app is already available to download on Google Play and gold purchase trails are already unddrway in Malaysia.

They have also recently partnered with blockchain startup Aeon credit who have agreed to provide financing to customers at competitive rates.

It’s the first certified Shariah compliant online gold platform in the world, during the token sale they attracted investment from heavyweight venture-capital firm Fenbushi Capital with Bo Shen from the firm also joining the advisory board.

As for the team it includes CEO Robin Lee who is the former CFO of the World Gold Council with a strong background in financial roles.

Roger Ward also has vast experience working in the gold industry, having most recently worked at the World Gold Council developing strategy and managing complex projects in London. Other team members have come from roles at the Royal Bank Scotland Group, Wolff Olins PLC, AEON Group and Wykeen Seet was the VP at Bangkok Bank in Thailand.
At the time of writing one HelloGold (HGT) costs $0.008512, making it a bargain.
It is currently trading on EtherDelta, HitBTC and Coss.

Cindicator

Cindicator is a decentralised analytics platform powered by ‘hybrid’ intelligence. The project raised a cool 55,569 Ether in the token sale earlier this year with over 4,000 participants.

Cindicator uses the wisdom of the crowd to determine answers to market changes. By aggregating opinions from a wide range of forecasters in different countries with different professional backgrounds, personal experience etc the platform can accurately quantify and provide accurate predictions when hedging trades.

The team behind Cindicator is what makes it a very promising token to watch. Names include Charlie Shrem COO at Jaxx, who is also a founder of the Bitcoin Foundation, Anthony Diiorio Founder at Jaxx and Ethereum, Marcus Killick Chairman of the Gibraltar Stock Exchange, Evan Cheng Director of Engineering at Facebook, Anton Govor head of strategy at Moscow Exchange, CFO and co-founder of changelly Konstantin Gladych.

The current price of one CND token is a steal at $0.016822. Trading is taking place on both HitBTC and Mercatox.

VeChain

Established two years ago in Singapore VeChain is a product management platform built on the Ethereum Blockchain. They aim to revolutionise how products are processed through the supply chain by simplifying how manufacturers manage, collect and share data with vendors and consumers.

VeChain is already making waves by securing some very promising partnerships. Recently they were accepted into an incubation program launched by accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). They have also partnered with the world’s largest freight company, Kuehne & Nagel. The firm has a yearly revenue of around $21 billion. VeChain will help smartify parcels with chips linked to data held on the Blockchain to make tracking, managing and global collaboration more efficient.

VEN token is currently trading on Binance, Liqui, HitBtc, Coss, OpenLedger DEX, Kucoin and EtherDelta at $0.25 per token.

Tronix

Beijing-based blockchain startup TRON is a protocol for the global digital entertainment industry. It provides developers with the infrastructure for app development and smart networks which in layman’s terms means TRON is developing a worldwide free content entertainment system built on the blockchain which will enable users to publish, store and own media in a decentralised manner.

Tron’s founder Justin Sun is no stranger to the entertainment industry and was named in Forbe’s China 2015, 30 under 30.

He was also a former Chief Representative at Ripple and has since turned Peiwo, a streaming app into the leading live-streaming app in China. He will also bring the apps 10 million active userbase into the TRON ecosystem giving the project a solid user base from the get go.

Other members of the team include Jihan WU, CEO of Bitmain, Shuoji Zhou, partner of FBG Capital, Chaoyong Wang and founder of ChinaEquity Group.

The price of one TRX is currently $0.001956 and can be purchased on Binance, Liqui, Gatecoin, Mercatox, HitBtc and EtherDelta.

Request Network

Fin-tech firm Request Network has made waves in the last couple of months when it raised a cool $33,600,000 in their initial coin offering. Unlike many Blockchain firms they were actually founded in 2015 and started receiving support very early on from ING bank. Request Network aims to become a decentralised network for payment requests allowing businesses or anyone for that matter to request monies from just about anywhere. It is looking to position itself as a payment provider like paypal, stripe etc with one of its main uses being invoice management on a distributed ledger.

Notably Request Network was the first ICO to be incubated by the well known American-based seed accelerator YCombinator.

Not only is Request Network utilising the Ethereum Blockchain but also other technologies including Civic, Aragon and 0x. The team behind Request Network also have great experience in the finance industry having founded money transfer service Moneytis. Gilles Fedak co-founder of iEx.ec also sites on the advisory board.

As blockchain starts being implemented into mainstream services it is crucial that tools and services are available to simplify and automate migration from traditional billing and invoicing systems through to blockchain based approaches. We Request.Network will be that bridge.

Utrust

Similar to Request.Network and dubbed the “payments platform of the future” Utrust aims to take the benefits of PayPal and weave them in to Blockchain technology to create the ultimate online payment gateway that will protect buyers with mediation and sellers.

Utrust is a member of the Crypto Valley Association and is also supported by the Swiss government.
The team behind Utrust come from a variety of backgrounds including finance, banking, UX and cyber security.

The price of one Utrust token is just 6.5 cents through the crowdsale and is expected to be trading on EtherDelta very soon.

The UK’s biggest financial investing website is now offering the non technical savvy the opportunity to invest in Bitcoin.

Customers who have a general trading or self-invested pension fund with Hargreaves Lansdown can now buy into a tracker that follows Bitcoin without the fuss.

ETNs are funds listed on the stock exchange, so they can be bought and sold like shares. They are denominated in Swedish krona and investors should be aware of the currency risks, as well as those attached to bitcoin itself.

“By adding self-service, online dealing, the team at Hargreaves Lansdown is providing UK investors with professional and quick access to the bitcoin space in the UK and greater Europe. This is very exciting for any investors who have been thinking about buying bitcoin but did not want the hassle of security and regulation involved in buying bitcoin directly from exchanges. Now investors can quickly add bitcoin exposure to their portfolio via their brokerage account.” says Ryan Radloff, Head of Investor Relations for XBT Provider, AB.

At the time of writing the price of Bitcoin currently stands at $2,443 / £1,895 / €2177 / 21247 SEK

The Polish Cybercrime Unit based in Krakow have announced the arrest of a 28-year old man in connection with the theft of around 85,000 PLN from Polish Bitcoin exchange BitMarket.pl

Working from a tip off, the Cybercrime Unit began tracking the perpetrator and subsequently arrested computer scientist ‘Raphael W’ – who according to the police manipulated the BitMarket software to illegally withdraw around 85,000 Zloty or £15,000 Sterling.

The official notice was posted on the Provincial Police Headquarters website but was unclear with regards to how exactly the theft took place and what has happened with the money.

The perpetrator was arrested for breaking the Computer Fraud Act – Art. 287 of the Penal Code with a maximum imprisonment of five years in jail.

Customers of the Polish Bitcoin exchange recently voiced concerns regarding the theft of coins from their wallets.

Bitcoin startup Nuovocard which is set to officially launch at the end of September – is an innovative POS solution which aims to speed up the process of buying, selling and trading goods in a retail environment with a simple debit card.

The card is the first of a kind for transactions as customers can make payments offline with no internet connection by either swiping or scanning the magnetic card which comes with a handy QR code across any android or IOS device to make payment.

One of the main problems with integrating Bitcoin payments within a brick and mortar setting is the speed and queue which usually forms behind the customer fiddling with their smartphone. Nuovocard solves this problem as the customer can quickly hand the card to the merchant who will then swipe it and then prompt the customer to enter the pin or simply scan the QR code.

What adds to the speed of Nuovocard is that the system ensures immediate conversions & payouts to retailers with support from local exchanges world over. This means that merchants can be rest assured that the fluctuating Bitcoin market price will not affect the sale price.

The backend system processes transactions using a Google API with a water tight SSL connection with AES encryption.

“Security and safeguarding customers transactions is the focus of NuovoCard’s design” said the CEO.

Merchants can download the Nuovocard app at the end of September either at the Google or Apple store and the official Nuovocard website. Anyone wishing to use the card straight away can sign up anonymously and print a QR code version of the card.

NuovoCard will be an irresistible POS option for all merchants looking to accept Bitcoin due to the 0.5% transaction fee.

Anyone wishing to test the security of NuovoCard can take part in the hacking challenge which has a very attractive $2800 bounty.